You make it sound like your personal data was uninportant - who cares if you get soft errors on that.
It's not unimportant -- it's just that you would be constantly writing it to new cards anyway. The situation wouldn't be that much different than how it was with floppy disks (or even how it is now with hard drives). As long as your data has been moved to a new flash card every year or two, the old card can become a read-only backup before the card wears out.
Okay. So abortion should be legal until at least 3 years old.
Nope, sorry, that doesn't follow -- an infant is very much "able to be part of a society with other humans" at birth. If you don't believe me, ask the infant's mother.
And then as soon as someone shows themselves as incapable of being part of society (for example, by stealing something), then they are once more eligible for abortion.
How does stealing something make someone "incapable of being part of society"? Shoplifters are caught and rehabilitated all the time. Now if you had used a stronger example, like "gunning down 30 random people with an AK-47", you might be right -- indeed, the USA does currently allow "abortion" to be applied to perpetrators of such crimes.
And the higher brain functions that we have evolved seem to be serving a purpose of actually _weakening_ our species, rather than strengthening it.
Two things here:
It may be that protecting the weak and the sick does not in fact weaken our species, but strengthens it. Any weak/sick person that we nurse back to health now is someone who may become very useful to us later. And even if they remain weak/sick, in today's high-tech world weak/sick people can nonetheless be very useful if they have skills/knowledge/talent (cue image of 98-lb computer genius here).
Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume that modern customs are weakening the species... it is very likely still the right thing to do. Since our species is already more or less the dominant species on this planet, there is no particular reason for it to need to become stronger. So if "strengthening the species" is no longer the primary goal, what is? The answer might be "improving the quality of life for all", in which case caring for the weak/sick is just the thing to do.
Even if you only can get 10,000 writes out of a flash chip, it still isn't necessarily a problem -- just split your drives into mostly-read-only drives (that hold your OS and your apps, and get written too only rarely) and personal-data-storage drives (which get written to often, but which you replace every few years anyway). Design your computer with two or three flash slots, and just leave the "OS/app flash" in all the time.
(This assumes that you can read from the flash chips as much as you want, without wearing them out... hopefully that is the case)
And this game doesn't help explain what happened? I suppose we shouldn't teach the world how Jews in WWII were slaughtered, because that would be glorifying Adolf Hitler
I think the key difference is that this game puts you in the role of the assassin -- i.e. you are encouraged to (pretend to) kill JFK, as a form of entertainment. The WWII example (as noted previously) would be a game where you score points by torturing and killing as many Jews as possible in your concentration camp. Most people would find that offensive also.
When he was alive, Jesus was a liberal. If he was here now, he would be a conservative. Yay for paradigm shifts.
You sure about that? I seem to recall Jesus talking a lot about helping the poor, loving one's neighbor, turning the other cheek, etc. That all still sounds pretty liberal to me... I think if Jesus was here now, he would be ridiculed by the conservatives for being a starry-eyed bleeding heart peacenik.
The prius is hideous, so is the echo, and now this?
I disagree -- I think the 2004 Prius looks pretty cool. (I won't say anything about the Insight...;^)) However, if you want a "normal looking" hybrid car, check out the Civic Hybrid (or the upcoming Accord Hybrid). They look identical to the corresponding non-hybrid models.
An aside: what is really cool about the tri-color LEDs is that you could potentially have dials to adjust the relative intensity of the colors and thus produce any color of the rainbow
The suggests a potential solution to the color-shift problem: add some circuitry to the light that compensates for the color shift by dimming the other colors as necessary to maintain a balance.
No no, the article has it right -- the motors can actually recover power from mechanical failures. This will give soldiers an electricity source to play their GameBoys with while waiting for the repair crew to arrive.
Turn them in at the next stop... I hear there is a big reward out.
Seriously though, that isn't an issue with this system because you aren't forced to sit next to anyone if you don't want to. It's like taking a taxi. You pay the fee for the cab, and you can decide whether to go by yourself or split the cost with someone.
This suddenly made me think that there would have to be some kind of safeguards against someone just putting a bomb in a pod and sending it off to its destination
Yup... you get in, the doors close, you press the big green GO button, and then the vehicle starts off... unless you've created a bomb that has a robot arm on it to press the button, this will ensure that only the really motivated (read: suicide) bombers can use the cars as a bomb-delivery vehicle.
It sounds like a minor thing to get out of your car to get into this thing, but it is a major problem. You now need huge parking lots, plus it wastes time.
Actually you don't, because there is usually a station within walking distance of wherever you are. You can just walk to the nearest station. That's one of the big advantages of this system over the traditional light rail systems, which can only have a few stations.
There's a down side to this though. You incur transmission losses when dealing with electric power, usually 7-9%.
You also incur transmission losses with automobiles -- it takes energy to transport all that gasoline around to the point where it will get burned -- both before and after the gasoline enters your gas tank. I admit I have no idea what the overhead percentage is though....
I think you're right if you are comparing it to a subway train. Thousands of people can crowd into a train in just a minute or two.
True, but how long did all those people spend standing around on the platform waiting for the train to arrive? You gotta factor that in...
Handling that kind of volume where everyone has to get in and out of individual pods would cause an unbearably long queue
Not necessarily... if the system is optimized so that getting in and out of the pods is as quick as possible (i.e. less than 5 seconds), it might not be too bad. In particular, I think it would be necessary for people to specify their destination in advance at the ticketing counter, so that all they have to do is present their ticket/pass to the pod and step in and go.
Of course, I -do- agree with you - We pay entirely too much in taxes. Both in the US, and globally. It's past time that people took responsibility for themselves and their own decisions, and stopped trying to fix everyone, and everything
Isn't that just another way of saying "let the fuckwads (and their children) die preventable deaths, if they don't have the money to pay for private healthcare"?
Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto. Yes, there's a lot of nuance, but I'm afraid that it's that simple.
No, it's not that simple. If the Bush administration doesn't like the Kyoto Treaty -- fine. But where is their alternate plan for dealing with global warming? Right now their only plan is to deny that it exists for as long as possible. This is a problem that isn't going to go away, a problem that needs to be solved decades before it gets to the crisis stage -- and they simply refuse to acknowledge that it exists at all. It's the height of irresponsibility and short-sightedness.
Sure, it may take a while, but it's totally possible!
Hmm... suppose the contraption allows the athlete to climb one kilometer per hour. To reach the top of the 400,000 kilometer ribbon, it's going to take the athlete about 45 years. Hope he's got endurance!
Yeah yeah, every space elevator story brings up the same old objections... they are all resolvable. The only really intractable problem will be convincing the religious right that this is not another "Tower of Babel" and therefore not sinful/doomed/evil/etc.
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It's not unimportant -- it's just that you would be constantly writing it to new cards anyway. The situation wouldn't be that much different than how it was with floppy disks (or even how it is now with hard drives). As long as your data has been moved to a new flash card every year or two, the old card can become a read-only backup before the card wears out.
Nope, sorry, that doesn't follow -- an infant is very much "able to be part of a society with other humans" at birth. If you don't believe me, ask the infant's mother.
And then as soon as someone shows themselves as incapable of being part of society (for example, by stealing something), then they are once more eligible for abortion.
How does stealing something make someone "incapable of being part of society"? Shoplifters are caught and rehabilitated all the time. Now if you had used a stronger example, like "gunning down 30 random people with an AK-47", you might be right -- indeed, the USA does currently allow "abortion" to be applied to perpetrators of such crimes.
Two things here:
(This assumes that you can read from the flash chips as much as you want, without wearing them out... hopefully that is the case)
True. And the primary reason why people are changing to Firefox is because they are tired of continually contracting viruses through IE.
The fact that they will be selling it for $10 suggests that it won't be top-shelf fare...
I think the key difference is that this game puts you in the role of the assassin -- i.e. you are encouraged to (pretend to) kill JFK, as a form of entertainment. The WWII example (as noted previously) would be a game where you score points by torturing and killing as many Jews as possible in your concentration camp. Most people would find that offensive also.
You sure about that? I seem to recall Jesus talking a lot about helping the poor, loving one's neighbor, turning the other cheek, etc. That all still sounds pretty liberal to me... I think if Jesus was here now, he would be ridiculed by the conservatives for being a starry-eyed bleeding heart peacenik.
How many years until we have "September 11th, the video game"?
I disagree -- I think the 2004 Prius looks pretty cool. (I won't say anything about the Insight...
The suggests a potential solution to the color-shift problem: add some circuitry to the light that compensates for the color shift by dimming the other colors as necessary to maintain a balance.
No no, the article has it right -- the motors can actually recover power from mechanical failures. This will give soldiers an electricity source to play their GameBoys with while waiting for the repair crew to arrive.
Turn them in at the next stop... I hear there is a big reward out.
Seriously though, that isn't an issue with this system because you aren't forced to sit next to anyone if you don't want to. It's like taking a taxi. You pay the fee for the cab, and you can decide whether to go by yourself or split the cost with someone.
Yup
Actually you don't, because there is usually a station within walking distance of wherever you are. You can just walk to the nearest station. That's one of the big advantages of this system over the traditional light rail systems, which can only have a few stations.
You also incur transmission losses with automobiles -- it takes energy to transport all that gasoline around to the point where it will get burned -- both before and after the gasoline enters your gas tank. I admit I have no idea what the overhead percentage is though....
True, but how long did all those people spend standing around on the platform waiting for the train to arrive? You gotta factor that in...
Handling that kind of volume where everyone has to get in and out of individual pods would cause an unbearably long queue
Not necessarily... if the system is optimized so that getting in and out of the pods is as quick as possible (i.e. less than 5 seconds), it might not be too bad. In particular, I think it would be necessary for people to specify their destination in advance at the ticketing counter, so that all they have to do is present their ticket/pass to the pod and step in and go.
Isn't that just another way of saying "let the fuckwads (and their children) die preventable deaths, if they don't have the money to pay for private healthcare"?
Maybe you are okay with that -- I'm not.
No, it's not that simple. If the Bush administration doesn't like the Kyoto Treaty -- fine. But where is their alternate plan for dealing with global warming? Right now their only plan is to deny that it exists for as long as possible. This is a problem that isn't going to go away, a problem that needs to be solved decades before it gets to the crisis stage -- and they simply refuse to acknowledge that it exists at all. It's the height of irresponsibility and short-sightedness.
Sorry, a solution that is too expensive for 99% of the people is no solution at all.
Hmm... suppose the contraption allows the athlete to climb one kilometer per hour. To reach the top of the 400,000 kilometer ribbon, it's going to take the athlete about 45 years. Hope he's got endurance!
Not to mention the fact that it will be located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where there aren't any birds.
(I wish I was purely kidding!)
If they were to also include the Question in the trailer, the universe would end. It has therefore been omitted as a safety precaution.